Good Afternoon-
In looking through the RR Database, I have found several instances in which it appears that a longer alpha-tag length would better suite a particular entry... I know in my area alone, for the submissions that I have made, an extra charachter or two would help out tremendously.
That said, the question here is... Why are we still holding on to the 12-charachter limit?
I understand the motive behind the regulation ("to ensure compatibility with older scanners that support only a 12-character alpha tag"), but does the population of users accessing the database show a predominace of "older scanners"?
I did some quick research and the most popular units on the market today (BCD996, BCD396, PSR-500, PSR-600, RS 106, RS 107, for example) all support sixteen charachter Alpha-Tags -- how many folks are still (actively) using devices outside of this scope?
To look at it a different way -- with all of the Rebanding and Digital migrations, how many "older scanners" are becoming obsolete? As they are no longer supported by the vendors or by the systems they would like to listen to, shouldn't we start to aim towards the newer devices on the market?
If not globally, could this become an option for some areas? A per-system option, maybe?
Really, this isn't a major issue for me... More along the lines of wishful thinking. We're all pretty technical (for the most part), I would like to see RR keep up!
JustN
In looking through the RR Database, I have found several instances in which it appears that a longer alpha-tag length would better suite a particular entry... I know in my area alone, for the submissions that I have made, an extra charachter or two would help out tremendously.
That said, the question here is... Why are we still holding on to the 12-charachter limit?
I understand the motive behind the regulation ("to ensure compatibility with older scanners that support only a 12-character alpha tag"), but does the population of users accessing the database show a predominace of "older scanners"?
I did some quick research and the most popular units on the market today (BCD996, BCD396, PSR-500, PSR-600, RS 106, RS 107, for example) all support sixteen charachter Alpha-Tags -- how many folks are still (actively) using devices outside of this scope?
To look at it a different way -- with all of the Rebanding and Digital migrations, how many "older scanners" are becoming obsolete? As they are no longer supported by the vendors or by the systems they would like to listen to, shouldn't we start to aim towards the newer devices on the market?
If not globally, could this become an option for some areas? A per-system option, maybe?
Really, this isn't a major issue for me... More along the lines of wishful thinking. We're all pretty technical (for the most part), I would like to see RR keep up!
JustN